Your card for October 15, 2017
Lalita
Covered Bridge in Kokomo
The first long-distance auto race in the U. S. was held May
30, 1911, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The winner
averaged 75 miles an hour and won a 1st place prize of
$14,000. Today the average speed is over 167 miles an hour and
the prize is more than $1.2 million. Indianapolis Motor
Speedway is the site of the greatest spectacle in sports, the
Indianapolis 500. The Indianapolis 500 is held every Memorial
Day weekend in the Hoosier capital city. The race is 200 laps
or 500 miles long.
Abraham Lincoln moved to Indiana when he was 7 years old. He
lived most of his boyhood life in Spencer County with his
parents Thomas and Nancy.
Explorers Lewis and Clark set out from Fort Vincennes on their
exploration of the Northwest Territory.
The movie "Hard Rain" was filmed in Huntingburg.
During WWII the P-47 fighter-plane was manufactured in
Evansville at Republic Aviation.
Marcella Gruelle of Indianapolis created the Raggedy Ann doll
in 1914.
The first professional baseball game was played in Fort Wayne
on May 4, 1871.
James Dean, a popular movie star of the 1950s in such movies
as "East of Eden" and "Rebel without a Cause", was born
February 8, 1941, in Marion. He died in an auto crash at age
24.
David Letterman, host of television's "Late Show with David
Letterman," was born April 12, 1947, in Indianapolis.
Santa Claus, Indiana receives over one half million letters
and requests at Christmas time.
Crawfordsville is the home of the only known working rotary
jail in the United States. The jail with its rotating
cellblock was built in 1882 and served as the Montgomery
County jail until 1972. It is now a museum.
Historic Parke County has 32 covered bridges and is the
Covered Bridge Capital of the world.
True to its motto, "Cross Roads of America" Indiana has more
miles of Interstate Highway per square mile than any other
state. The Indiana state Motto, can be traced back to the
early 1800s. In the early years river traffic, especially
along the Ohio, was a major means of transportation. The
National Road, a major westward route, and the north-south
Michigan Road crossed in Indianapolis. Today more major
highways intersect in Indiana than in any other state.
Most of the state's rivers flow south and west, eventually
emptying into the Mississippi. However, the Maumee flows north
and east into Lake Erie. Lake Wawasee is the states largest
natural lake.
Indiana's shoreline with Lake Michigan is only 40 miles long,
but Indiana is still considered a Great Lakes State.
More than 100 species of trees are native to Indiana. Before
the pioneer's arrive more than 80% of Indiana was covered with
forest. Now only 17% of the state is considered forested.
Deep below the earth in Southern Indiana is a sea of limestone
that is one of the richest deposits of top-quality limestone
found anywhere on earth. New York City's Empire State Building
and Rockefeller Center as well as the Pentagon, the U.S.
Treasury, a dozen other government buildings in Washington
D.C. as well as 14 state capitols around the nation are built
from this sturdy, beautiful Indiana limestone.
Although Indiana means, "Land of the Indians" there are fewer
than 8,000 Native Americans living in the state today.
The first European known to have visited Indiana was French
Explorer Rene'-Robert Cavalier sierur de La Salle, in 1679.
After LaSalle and others explored the Great Lakes region, the
land was claimed for New France, a nation based in Canada.
In the 1700s the first 3 Non-native American settlements in
Indiana were the 3 French forts of Ouiatenon, Ft. Miami, and
Ft. Vincennes. Although they had few settlers in the region,
French presence in Indiana lasted almost 100 years. After the
British won the French and Indian War, and upon the signing of
the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the French surrendered their
claims to the lower Great Lakes region.
Indiana was part of the huge Northwest Territory, which
included present day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin,
which were ceded to the United States by the British at the
end of the Revolutionary war.
Ft. Wayne, Indiana's 2nd Largest city, had its beginnings in
1794, after the Battle of Fallen Timbers, when General "Mad
Anthony" Wayne built Ft. Wayne on the site of a Miami Indian
village.
Many Mennonite and Amish live on the farmland of Northeastern
Indiana. One of the United States largest Mennonite
congregations is in Bern. According to Amish ordnung (rules)
they are forbidden to drive cars, use electricity, or go to
public places of entertainment.
At one time Studebaker Company of South Bend was the nation's
largest producer of horse-drawn wagons. It later developed
into a multimillion-dollar automobilemanufacturer.
In Fort Wayne, Syvanus F. Bower designed the world's first
practical gasoline pump.
Indianapolis grocer Gilbert Van Camp discovered his customers
enjoyed an old family recipe for pork and beans in tomato
sauce. He opened up a canning company and Van Camp's Pork and
Beans became an American staple.
Muncie's Ball State University was built mostly from funds
contributed by the founders of the Ball Corporation, a company
than made glass canning jars.
Thomas Hendricks, a Democrat from Shelbyville, served Indiana
as a United States Senator, a United States representative,
governor, and as Vice President under Grover Cleveland.
Indiana has been the home of 5 vice presidents and one
president.
Peru Indiana was once known as the "Circus Capital of
America".
Indiana University's greatest swimmer was Mark Spitz, who won
7 gold medals in the 1972 Olympic games. No other athlete has
won so many gold medals in a single year.
In 1934 Chicago Gangster John Dillinger escaped the Lake
Country Jail in Crown Point by using a "pistol" he had carved
from a wooden block.
Before Indianapolis, Corydon served as the state's capitol
from 1816-1825. Vincennes was the capital when Indiana was a
territory.
East Race Waterway, in south Bend, is the only man-made
white-water raceway in North America.
In 1862, Richard Gatling, of Indianapolis, invented the
rapid-fire machine gun.
The American Federation of Labor (AFL) was organized in Terre
Haute in 1881.
Sarah Walker, who called herself Madame J.C. Walker, became
one of the nation's first woman millionaires. In 1905 Sarah
Breedlove McWilliams Walker developed a conditioning treatment
for straightening hair. Starting with door-to-door sales of
her cosmetics, Madame C.J. Walker amassed a fortune.
From 1900 to 1920 more than 200 different makes of cars were
produced in the Hoosier State. Duesenbergs, Auburns, Stutzes,
and Maxwells - are prize antiques today.
The Indiana Gazette Indiana's first newspaper was published in
Vincennes in 1804.
The state constitution of 1816 directed the legislature to
establish public schools, but it was not until the 1850s that
state government was able to establish a public school system.
Before public schools families pitched in to build log
schoolhouse and each student's family paid a few dollars
toward the teachers salaries.
At one time 12 different stagecoach lines ran through Indiana
on the National Road. (Now U.S. Interstate 40)
In the 1830s canals were dug linking the Great Lakes to
Indiana's river systems. The canals proved to be a financial
disaster. Railroads made the canal system obsolete even before
its completions.
Indiana's first major railroad line linked Madison and
Indianapolis and was completed in 1847.
The farming community of Fountain City in Wayne County was
known as the "Grand Central Station of the Underground
Railroad." In the years before the civil war, Levi and Katie
Coffin were famous agents on the Underground Railroad. They
estimated that they provided overnight lodging for more than
2,000 runaway slaves who were making their way north to Canada
and freedom.
During the great Depression of the 1930's 1 in every 4 Hoosier
factory hands was out of work, farmers sank deeper in debt,
and in southern Indiana unemployment was as high as 50%.
In the summer of 1987 4,453 athletes from 38 nations gathered
in Indianapolis for the Pan American Games.
The Saturday Evening Post is published in Indianapolis.
Comedian Red Skelton, who created such characters as Clem
Kadiddlehopper, and Freddie the Freeloader, was born in
Vincennes.
The Poet Laureate of Indiana, James Whitcomb Riley was born in
a two-room log cabin in Greenfield. He glorified his rural
Indiana childhood in such poems as "The Old Swimmin' Hole"
"Little Orphant Annie", and " When the frost is on the
Pumpkin".
Albert Beveridge won the Pulitzer Prize in biography in 1920,
for The Life of John Marshall. In 1934 Harold Urey won the
Nobel Prize in chemistry for his discovery of deuterium. Ernie
Pyle won the Pulitzer Prize in foreign Correspondencein 1944.
Paul Samuelson won the Nobel Prize in economics, 1970.
Card by Lalita Rudy
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